28mm Pirate Sloop, Decks, or Watch Anton lose his mind

There are indeed times when I think I might be completely mad. The most troubling times are those in which I look at a project and think to myself "That would be completely daft" and then go ahead and do exactly the daft thing.

I had decided to put deck planking in mt Pirate sloop, at first I took the high road and drew it in, then I planked a portion and finally I free-hand drew the last bit. Having done all three I can say that the planking wasn't as bad as the free-hand work (it also looks much better). Judge for yourself but in the future I will be drawing the planks on with a straight-edge.

 before I can add a deck I had to raise the level of the well-deck, 

I took this opportunity to add a balsa wood layer so that the mast 

would have something sturdier than blue-board to attach to

a thick layer of Tite-bond carpenter's glue was the first step

 then I took a slab of 1/4" balsa from the parts bin and cut it to fit the length of the deck, 

I made foam fillers for the sides as the balsa wasn't as wide as the deck

 the balsa was added and the top was moistened to help aviod warping

the power of knowledge (and gravity) 

was also employed to make sure that the wood didn't warp

 while that was going on I cut some very thin strips of foam 1/4" x 1/16"

 ta-da; deck planks.....this is where I started to worry about my sanity

 in a moment of clarity I decided to add more fill to the well-deck by way of slabs of blue foam that I had the sense to draw the planking on before I started gluing them in place

thius was probabl;y the best decision all evening

 at last the deck was high enough that the crew could see over the gunwale

 much better

 but the hull tapered and the blocks did not!

60 grit sandpaper does wonders at shaping blue-board

 soon everything was fitted and tight as a drum

 then I decided to follow a darker path, one of madness

and planking!

in retrospect I should have done the planking before I added railings

actually it was WAY easier than I thought it would be

 the thin foam planks cut easily with a sharp X-Acto knife

 a liberal coating of Tite-bond and the foam sticks just fine

 in less than twenty minutes I was done

 then I lost my mind for real and hand drew the forecastle deck.

....I might just end up planking this as well, I can't say I'm happy with the results

 one reader has taken me up on mu offer of a kit for the asking 

so I decided to chronicle the genesis of this model as it matches the original; 

first step is to download some snazzy pictures from the internet

 then scribble out a likely looking hull form onto some scrap paper 

and trace it onto a sheet of blue-board

 this one sheet generated all the parts needed for the model

 I rough-cut the hull outline from the sheet to ease handling

 this is how it all started, I needed practice cutting curves

.....looks like I still need help

I then cut the forecastle and sterncastle a 1/4" smaller than the hull

 so that the sides could be planked over with a single strip of blue-board

I also but a ton of strips for building up the sides and for framing and decking

 (yes I am sending him planking for the deck!)

 in less than half an hour the model kit was ready to ship (pun intended) 

the best part of all the kit is its own packing material!

ready to ship!

(ah yes, more bad puns!)

Still two more days if anybody else wants a model kit, probably ships anywhere in the UI.S. for under ten bucks, not really sure about the rest of the world.